


Three Strands

by Topaz_Eyes



Category: X Company
Genre: Canon Compliant, Developing Friendships, Gen, Inspired By Tumblr, Mentions of Character Death, Mentions of Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-31
Updated: 2020-10-31
Packaged: 2021-03-09 00:28:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,388
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27315535
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Topaz_Eyes/pseuds/Topaz_Eyes
Summary: Three scenes in Aurora and Neil’s friendship.
Relationships: Aurora Luft and Neil Mackay
Comments: 2
Kudos: 7





	Three Strands

**Author's Note:**

> Takes place pre-series; during s2e5, “Nil Nocere”; and during s3e6, “Supply and Demand.” Based on an off-hand Tumblr comment all the way back from November 2016, which sparked this fic. Concrit is treasured!

_1\. Camp X near Whitby, Ontario, Canada, February 1942_

At their first hand-to-hand combat session, Aurora waited nervously with three of her team – René, Tom, and Harry – while the fifth member, their instructor Neil, explained the basics of fighting in close quarters.

It was their second day of Allied agent training. Each had been recruited for their expertise: Aurora and René were journalists from Montreal who’d fought in the French Resistance. Harry majored in chemistry and physics at the University of Toronto; Tom was an ad man from New York; Neil was an English policeman and soldier who’d fought at Dunkirk.

Only time would tell, Aurora thought, how successfully they would work together. Privately, though, as she participated and observed the session in progress, she had to wonder.

She caught Neil rolling his eyes more than once as he walked around the gym and observed them spar in pairs: her with Harry, and René with Tom. Arms crossed, he scowled as Harry pulled back a blow to Aurora’s solar plexus that would have winded her had it landed.

“Hold back like that in the field, Harry, and you’re dead,” he said.

“I don’t want to hurt Aurora if I hit her--” Harry began.

“An enemy bird’s not gonna serve you tea and crumpets for being a gentleman. She’s gonna knee you in the bollocks til you’re crying in a ball on the ground. Try again with more follow through this time. And Aurora, don’t let him make contact.”

“Wow,” Tom muttered in disbelief behind them as Harry’s cheeks reddened with embarrassment. “Hard-ass much?”

Neil whirled around and advanced a step. “What was that, Cummings?”

“Nothing.”

“Get back to work then.”

The session continued. Aurora found herself frequently stopping to push her hair back; she’d duly fastened the front and sides of her hair with a tortoiseshell barrette, but wisps had already escaped with her increasing exertion and flew around her face halfway through the session. Neil peered at her with a put-upon expression, then stopped the practice.

“Right then, let’s see how you ladies are coming along,” Neil said, ignoring the annoyed looks from the men. He pointed at Aurora. “You. You’re up first. Let’s go.”

They stood opposite each other on the leather mat in the centre of the room, the others observing from the side. She crouched, feet planted a shoulder’s width apart. Neil matched her stance, studying her up and down.

“Right. Your job is to take me out,” he said, “by any means available to you. Whatever it takes. Ready?”

She pushed wayward wisps of hair behind her ear and nodded. “Ready.”

“On three, then. One. Two. Three.”

They circled each other for a few seconds, gazes pinned, waiting to strike. The mat felt slightly lumpy under her feet, she thought, and sure enough, Neil slid one foot forward and his stance wobbled, one knee about to give way.

There was her in. She lunged towards him, one step, two –

With lightning speed, he stepped sideways out of Aurora’s reach and neatly avoided her attack.

She thought she felt a tug on her hair. “What?” she said –

Her hair loosened enough to obscure her vision. Where is he? Aurora thought, panic rising. She reached forward blindly –

Neil spun around her and seized a fistful of hair where her hair tie had slipped. He yanked her head back with some force.

“OWWWW!”

The next thing Aurora knew, Neil twisted his grip. She stopped short, her eyes tearing in pain.

Through the scream of stretching skin, she heard Harry yell “Jesus! Neil, stop!” and Tom shout “Neil, what the HELL?” in unison.

“Get your fucking hands off her!” René said, low and furious.

Undeterred, Neil forced Aurora to her knees on the mat, keeping a firm hold on her hair near the nape of her neck. Through blurred vision and tangled strands she saw René with clenched fists ready to pull Neil away from her, Harry staring in shock, and Tom glaring daggers, but all of them frozen in place –

It was then she felt a cold metal point against her temple.

“Bang.”

She stopped struggling as it sunk in. If this had been a real fight, she’d be dead.

Still holding onto Aurora, Neil addressed the group with a tone as steely as his glare. “Right then. First lesson in hand-to-hand combat with the enemy: never assume a fair fight. Anything can and will be used as a weapon against you. Including your mates. _Especially_ your mates. Don’t give Jerry any chance to find a weakness.”

Neil hadn’t only been testing her, Aurora thought; he’d also used her to teach the boys a lesson. One by one, each observer in the group looked away, chastened. Only then did Neil release his hold on Aurora. She bowed her head, trembling and gasping as she tried to pull herself together. She felt his appraising gaze on her and tried not to cringe in embarrassment.

“Take five,” he said to the group. He rounded to face Aurora, crooked his finger at her, and added, “Aurora, with me.”

René stepped forward in between Neil and Aurora, and gently helped her up to standing. “Don’t you dare touch her, that’s an order—” René began, scowling at Neil.

“May I remind you who’s leading this session today,” Neil said in the same rough tone.

“René, I’m okay,” Aurora said.

“No, Aurora, he held you at _gunpoint_.”

“It’s fine, René.” She patted his arm. “I’m fine.”

He peered at her, not believing, but she continued to stare him down until reluctantly he let her go and stepped back.

“You, stay here,” Neil said to René. He tramped away from the rest of the group, beckoning Aurora.

Warily, she followed Neil to the back of the gym where a folding chair leaned against the wall. He grabbed it and snapped it open, then planted it on the floor, facing the wall. He gestured at it. “Sit down,” he said.

Aurora’s shock gave way to to barely-contained fury, and she glared at him, her chest heaving. “Not until you tell me why,” she said.

Neil’s eyes narrowed and he stepped into her space. “Sit _down_ ,” he repeated. “I won’t say it again.”

They glared at each other for several seconds, until Aurora relented and did as ordered with a resigned exhale. Neil rounded to stand behind her; the next thing she knew, he had unfastened the clasp of her barrette and pulled it out. The rest of her hair tumbled down around her shoulders.

“What the hell are you doing?”

Aurora tried to twist free, to slap his hands away from her head, but Neil seized her by her shoulders none too gently and pinned her until she stopped struggling. When she went still, he turned her head to face away from him again. With a sinking feeling she realized the others probably couldn’t see her from their angle.

“Stay still and this won’t hurt.”

Oh, that’s a comfort, she thought, resentful. She fumed silently, but didn’t dare move. She stiffened though, when firm hands reached around the crown of her head, thumbs above her ears.

“Now listen, Aurora. Unlike your boyfriends there, Jerry will not be a gentleman in close-quarters combat,” Neil said, gathering all her hair back off her face as he spoke. “I know you fought in the Resistance, but this is different thinking. If your hair’s flying everywhere like it was earlier, you may as well be fighting blind.”

Blunt, sure fingers separated her hair into three sections. “Long hair is your weak spot. Once Jerry grabs hold of it, you’re done. Don’t let him. Pulling it back’s not enough. You’ve got to secure it tight. Braid, then bun. Leave nothing to grab onto.”

Neil grasped and twisted the sections together with dizzying speed. In less than a minute he had fully plaited her hair into a tight single braid. He took her barrette and clipped up the end of the braid to form a makeshift roll, making sure to secure it underneath where it couldn’t be easily pulled out.

“Not my best work, but it’ll do,” he said, as if to himself. To Aurora he said, “After training’s done today, go to QMs, get as many bobby pins as they can spare you. You’ll need them. Next time, I don’t want to see you out here unless your hair’s properly fixed. Understood?”

“Understood,” Aurora said, still chafing. He wasn’t even going to apologize for the harsh way he’d just treated everyone? But she couldn’t resist lifting her hand to pat the bun at the back. It wasn’t going anywhere. Despite her annoyance she was impressed.

“Right then.” To everyone else he shouted, “Break’s over. Back to work.”

True to his word, her hair didn’t dislodge the rest of the session.

~~~~~

_2\. Varèges Resistance Camp, France, August 1942_  


Just after returning from Paris from her first undercover mission as Helene Bauer, Aurora stood in the middle of her tent in the woods, where she pulled out her small compact mirror from her trouser pocket, and sighed at her reflection in the waning afternoon light.

It had been a very long day. She’d left the camp at sunrise, first to secure their new safehouse in Paris; then to visit a friendly hairdresser in the Sixth Arrondisement. For her initial meeting with Sabine Faber, Aurora had decided to go all out to make a favourable first impression with her target. Adèle, the salon proprietor, was a small, birdlike woman who had utterly delighted in fixing her hair to fit the role of Helene Bauer.

After so long in the field doing everything herself, Aurora had forgotten how luxurious it felt to have someone fret and fuss over her hairstyle the way Adèle had. With tip, it had been money well-spent for the intelligence she’d gathered on Oberführer Faber and his wife.

Aurora had already changed into camp clothing back at the Paris safe house – men’s shirt, trousers, boots and jacket – but then Tom and Harry returned from the Marais with young Jacob Katz before she could get to unpinning her hair. Tom’s scar had reopened, and Harry had injured his hand, so in the rush to check them over and return to the camp before curfew, she’d forgotten she hadn’t yet finished changing out of her Helene persona.

Until now. Such a selfish thing to think about, she scolded herself, but she couldn’t yet bear to undo the elaborate set of rolls and pin curls she still wore. The hairstyle remained fully in place, hours after being set; Adèle was a master stylist. Though as perfectly appropriate as it was for Paris, her hair was completely impractical in the woods.

She was due shortly for meeting the rest of the team as it was. Yet she still lingered, reluctant to let go of the success of the day. She’d befriended Sabine, learned of a Wehrmacht general’s impending visit; had infiltrated Faber’s home. Events were moving quickly; it felt good to set aside her guilt over René for awhile.

She felt a long shadow fall at the entrance to her tent. “Well, there’s fancy for you.”

She turned on her heel to see Neil blocking the tent flap. He stood with his arms folded, his eyebrow arched and a quick half-smirk of amusement blooming on his face.

“Brought a bit of Paris back with me,” Aurora said, patting her curls with a self-deprecating huff of her own.

“I can see that.”

There was no recrimination or mockery in his voice or in his features; rather he looked thoughtful. “Shame to have to take that all out,” he said after a brief silence.

“I’ve been putting it off as long as I could,” Aurora admitted.

He nodded. “Can’t blame you there,” he said, “it suits you.”

She peered at him, surprised. Neil normally wasn’t given to sympathize over anything trivial. If anything, her reluctance about her hair would meet that definition. But he seemed more at ease this evening than he’d been for awhile. She wondered if it was because Tom had returned to the team that morning. Or perhaps Miri’s presence in the camp had something to do with it.

She chose to take Neil’s remark as a compliment. “Thank you, Neil,” she said.

He walked over to stand beside her. She still held the compact mirror flipped open in her hand; Neil closed it, took it from her gently and set it aside. “D’you have a brush handy?” he added.

Aurora nodded, accepting his tacit offer. “Let me get it for you.” She retrieved her hairbrush from her satchel and sat on a log she’d commandeered for a makeshift stool. She then closed her eyes, grateful that Neil volunteered to do this for her because she was not at all looking forward to taking it all out.

Neil methodically disassembled the curls and rolls, dropping the pins that held them together into her outstretched hand as he pulled each out. When all her hair was freed, he drew the brush through the residual waves, working in short strokes from the tip ends to her crown, until her hair was perfectly smooth and tangle-free.

She found herself relaxing under his ministrations, lulled by the rhythm. Not once did Neil yank the brush through; he handled her hair with a deftness and care that made her feel like she was back in the hairdressing chair with Adèle in the salon in Paris. Which, sitting in a rough canvas tent, approaching sunset in the middle of a French forest, felt all the more surreal. Especially given how it was Neil behind her who brushed her hair out with such measured yet gentle strokes, not Adèle.

The realization struck her. “Your braiding my hair at the Camp wasn’t a fluke,” Aurora said.

Neil didn’t reply; he simply parted her hair into sections for a simple braid. He took a bunch of pins from her hand.

“You’ve done this before,” she added. “Braiding hair. Not just at the Camp. How — where did you learn?”

Neil only answered with a noncommittal hum. She turned her head far enough to see that he held several pins between his lips. He tilted her head back to face away from him, and began to plait her hair, swiftly and efficiently, sliding in pins to catch any flyaway wisps. He gathered the plait into a low roll and fastened it securely.

When he finished, he stepped back, arms crossed again. “Not my best work, but it’ll do,” he said.

She turned around to face him. “Neil, I—”

“You’ll be late for the meeting,” he reminded her.

“All right.” He wasn’t going to be forthcoming; she wasn’t about to push right now. She would wait for another time to ask. She reached out, touched his arm. “Okay. Thank you.”

He nodded and inclined his head towards the entrance to the tent. “They’re waiting for us.”

“I’ll see you out there.”

Neil nodded once and left the tent. Aurora patted her hair, impressed by how well it held together, and headed outside to be updated on the events in the camp and what had happened at the Marais.

~~~~~

_3\. Pruszko, Poland, September 1942_  


Aurora stood, frustrated, in front of her dressing table mirror in her hotel room across the street from the town hall that served as Nazi headquarters.

Wear your hair in a crown when you return to the office this afternoon, Faber had counselled, though he hadn’t elaborated why she would need to, let alone who they were going to meet. Faber had called the meeting at such short notice, just before she’d left for lunch less than a half-hour ago, she’d no time to dress properly for the role.

It seemed like Faber were testing her resolve, or setting her up to fail. Which was a distinct possibility; he more than resented their double-agent arrangement, especially since they’d followed him all the way from Paris to Poland.

A crown braid was a style for which she should really visit a hairdresser, she thought. She bolted a sandwich in her hotel room, then spent a few minutes attempting unsuccessfully to work out how to braid it by herself, until she heard a knock at her door.

Three-two-one. Of course.

She opened the door a crack to see who it was. “Neil,” she said, delighted though puzzled to see him, “come in, quickly.”

Aurora opened the door wider to allow Neil inside. He limped slightly; at Aurora’s concerned look he assured her, “It’s nothing, just twisted a bit walking here from the camp.”

“Why are you here in Pruszko?”

“Collecting our two new team members,” Neil replied.

Aurora glanced away for a moment. “That was fast,” she said, and swallowed.

“Yeah, they landed earlier today,” Neil continued as if he hadn’t heard her aside. “They should be arriving in,” he glanced at his watch, “forty-five minutes. Dropped by to update you and see if you needed anything in the meantime.”

“Actually, you came just at the right time. Can you help me with something?”

He shrugged and folded his arms. “Depends. What is it?”

She sighed at his gruffness, held out her hairbrush and a hand mirror. “Do you know how to braid a crown?” she asked helplessly. “I can’t do it by myself.”

He regarded her for a few seconds. “Sure,” he said at last, and gestured for her to sit.

She perched on the round stool at her dressing table as he limped the rest of the way into the room. This time she had all the necessary accoutrements laid out in front of her: pins in a small china bowl, ribbons, clips, brush, comb, mirrors. It felt downright civilized compared to the last time in the tent at Varèges, she thought, and she smiled fondly to herself.

“Care to share the joke?” Neil said.

“Just remembering something,” Aurora replied.

“I bet.”

Neil stood behind her and gathered her hair off her face using his fingers. He stared at the back of her head for a minute, deciding his strategy; he then leaned around her and picked up some clips.

“Here we go,” he said, “try not to move.” He bunched her hair into sections, and began to work. “This’ll be a little more intricate than before.”

“Of course.” Silence fell, and Aurora contented herself for a few minutes watching Neil work through the reflection in the mirror.

Curiosity finally got the better of her, and she wasn’t going to let him evade the question this time. “Where did you learn to braid hair like this?” Aurora asked.

Neil’s mouth twitched in a wry little chuckle. “You’re surprised I know how.”

“To be honest, it’s not something I expected to learn about you.”

“Yeah, I suppose.” But he remained resolutely quiet.

After a moment Aurora sighed again. “You know, we’ve worked together for how many months now? You hardly ever talk about yourself.”

“Not much to say, is there.”

“Neil –”

“Is this an order, Sergeant?”

“Jesus, Neil, that’s not fair,” she snapped. She scowled at his reflection in the mirror; he looked away, contrite. More gently, Aurora continued, “You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to. But please. As your friend, I’d like to know.”

A pensive look slowly crossed his features. He blinked a few times, as if trying to weigh how much to reveal. Aurora thought perhaps she was asking him to broach something too painful, but after a short, awkward silence, he cleared his throat and began. “When I returned to London from Shanghai in ’thirty-eight, I moved in with my mum, my sister, and my niece, Mags.”

Aurora’s hand flew to her mouth. Oh no, she should have realized. “I’m sorry,” she said softly. “I’m so sorry, I never thought--”

“It’s what it is, Aurora, you didn’t know.” He shrugged one shoulder, as if it didn’t matter, but he still avoided her gaze in the mirror.

“My mum had arthritis in her hands the last few years,” he continued. She heard the wistful undertone in his otherwise matter-of-fact voice, but the rhythm of his hands never faltered. Over, under, twist, repeat. “Her fingers were too stiff to do much by the end. My sister worked first shift cleaning at the hospital, she was gone before Mags woke up. But someone had to fix Mags’ hair in the mornings. Task fell to me. Mum showed me before the arthritis got too bad.”

Neil inserted a few bobby pins into the plaits around Aurora’s ears, then huffed, lips curving in mirth. “Course, the first few times, Mags was a holy terror. Four years old then, right squirmer that one, never stayed still. Was just about to tie her down, cut the whole mess off and be done with it, ‘til I figured out how much she loved the nursery rhymes. She’d sit quietly if we sang together. Got a lot easier after that. She grew to love me doing her hair. We both did.”

Aurora couldn’t help but smile at the images conjured in her mind. The mental pictures of Neil trying to chase and subdue a tiny, restless girl who refused to sit still to get her hair braided, or Neil singing to her while he fixed her hair, were completely foreign compared to the Neil she’d first known; but over the past few months it made perfect sense.

“I got back on the force a few weeks later,” he went on. The timbre of his voice changed, growing distant, as if losing himself in a private memory. Aurora listened intently, realizing what she was hearing. “Patrolled the night shift the first year. Mornings I’d come home right knackered. But there’d be Mags tearing to the door so’s I could scoop her up and carry her like a princess to her chair.”

He reached around her shoulder to pick up one more pin from the bowl on the dresser, and ended, so softly Aurora had to strain to catch it, “The things I saw as a copper, as a soldier – knowing Mags was waiting for me to come home, kept me going. Keeps me going. Sometimes it’s the only thing that does, now.”

“Mags is still alive,” she said gently. She knew about his mother and sister, but he’d never mentioned a niece before. He’d kept her a secret from everyone.

“She’s in an orphanage up north, yeah.”

At that point Neil stared directly into the mirror at Aurora. Their gazes met and held through the reflection; the mask of grim determination he usually wore had slipped, revealing the full weight of guilt and grief and exhaustion that lined his face and pressed on his shoulders. She knew exactly how he felt. René was gone, Tom was gone, and Miri, and Harry – his family, her father’s family, too many people they’d loved to count, and it wasn’t nearly over yet.

After a moment he broke their eye contact in the mirror and cleared his throat again. “Anyway, you wanted to know.” He inserted the last pin into Aurora’s coiffed hair then let his hands drop to his sides. “Now you do.”

Aurora nodded, her heart aching that he chose to share something so deeply personal, knowing the risk he was taking to reveal her existence. “This won’t last much longer, Neil,” she replied, trying to sound as confident as she could. “It won’t, and you’ll be back home with Mags soon.”

He looked back at her, the mask carefully in place again, and he shook his head: gentle, but still a rebuke. “Can’t afford to think about that yet. Gotta finish the mission first.”

“And we will.”

“Course we will.” Neil sniffed, then picked up the hand mirror and angled it to show Aurora the back of her head. “Not my best work, but it’ll do,” he said briskly. “At least you’re not a squirmer anymore.” He winked at her and grinned.

Aurora spluttered a quick laugh at the memory, then stared in awe at the intricate weaves laddering like a crown on top of her head; then gazed back at the dressing mirror, at the upswept tendrils held in place. “You know, you’ve said that every time, but this looks absolutely stunning,” Aurora replied, genuinely impressed. “I could never have done this by myself. You could be a professional hairdresser.”

“Hardly.” Neil looked embarrassed, but pleased at the compliment. “Lots of practice is all.”

“Still. Neil. I can’t thank you enough.” She patted his arm. “For everything.”

“You’re welcome. But I can’t be doing this all the time for you. Next time let’s make sure Alfred’s around so he can pick it up.” They shared a grin through the mirror.

“Anyway,” he inclined his head towards the door, “you should get going. Don’t want to be late for Herr Brigadeführer Faber.”

Neil stepped away from Aurora to give her room to move. She rose from the stool and smoothed her skirt. When she looked up again, she caught Neil’s reflection in the mirror, his head bowed, contemplating the hairbrush in his hand.

They’d worked together seven months, she remembered. Except the past seven months had felt more like seven years; how much more pain and loss were they going to endure before they were done, before they could go home. If they even made it that far. In the meantime they would have to draw strength from whatever they had left. With that thought, Aurora paused, turned, and wrapped her arms around him.

Neil hesitated briefly before returning the hug, carefully so not to dislodge the pins in Aurora’s hair. When he did, she felt, rather than heard, him sigh against her shoulder, and she squeezed him tighter.

“I’m all right,” he said after a moment.

“I know,” she replied, “I never said you weren’t.”

After another moment she released him, and he stepped back. “Time to rendezvous with the new lads,” Neil said, jabbing his thumb at the door. “Don’t need them getting lost in the forest their first day.”

“I’ll wait until you’re out of sight then head back to the office.”

“Good luck with your meeting.”

“You too.”

Neil left the room, and after a few more minutes, Aurora did too, wondering what on earth Faber had in store for her.


End file.
